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  May 28, 2021 “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24 [NIV] I think that if Jesus were to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan to today’s Believers, it would be ‘The Good Gay’. While it is not true for all, the aversion Jews and Samaritans felt towards each other was similar to today’s divide between Gays and Christians in general. Jesus set aside several taboos in striking up a conversation with the Woman at the Well, including the one that struck at the heart of their divide: who were the true worshipers of God. The woman tried to get a rise out of Jesus by bringing up the issue of the true place of worship—Mt Gerizim in Samaria where the Children of God first worshiped him in the Promised Land, or the place of Solomon’s original temple in Jerusalem. Jesus...

  Love God. Fear God. Of all the contradictions in the Bible, these two have given me the most trouble. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God” and “Be not afraid”, and “God is a terrible God” has given me pause to think about my relationship with God. Any person who treats another like this is controlling and abusive. I remember one time in my life where I spoke angrily to God and asked him how he could demand that I love Him. That crises came when I realized I could not doubt or deny his existence. And yet the Bible continues to pile on with “Fear not”, and “Nothing can separate us from God’s love”. I do not doubt that God is Love, despite what I read in the Old Testament, or that Hell is real because of what Jesus reveals about it in the New Testament. The key for me is understanding the relationship between love and fear. We are all afraid of something. Fear controls the world around us and gives rise to all the anger and wrath that separates us fro...

  Subject: BibleGateway.com Verse of the Day - May 18 2021     God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them . Hebrews 6:10 NIV   Dear Family and Friends,   It's my birthday today and I'm sitting here with mixed emotions.  BibleGateway.com puts a verse-of-the-day in my gmail every morning and I try to look at it first thing to get my mind around the presence of Christ and his place in my day.  So... as I opened the email I wondered, what will I see on my birthday?   This feels like a shameless promotion of my own goodness which would normally keep me quietly enjoying the message from God all to myself, but... I know myself, and I have thanked God many times for his goodness in my life.  I really do remember all the good things that you've done, and all the good things that you've helped me do...   This is really more than words to a song ...

  5/15/2021 Ecclesiastes 11:5 [NIV] As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. …And even if you do understand the science of weather or childbirth, this still does not allow you to understand God or His ways. That is the problem with the very concept of God, the creator of existence itself. We do not know what we do not know, and only have a shaky understanding of what we think we know, as evidenced by all the arguments arising to challenge even that. We live in a world being torn apart by ideas. If God exists – and he does; and if he has made himself known – and he has even to the point of entering into his own creation as a human being; what are we to do about that? Our own best religious efforts have contributed to the chaos and suffering of our world, as evidenced by the anger and blowback that now threatens to silence us. If we are honest, we must admit that s...

  5/6/5021 – John 2:1-5 [NIV] On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” There is a strange symbiosis between faith and miracles. Miracles help us have faith, and Jesus often remarked how our faith prompts God to do miracles. The story of Jesus’ first miracle is certainly strange. He was just beginning to choose his disciples and had no plans to reveal his glory by turning water into wine. He said as much to his mother who pointed out to him the dilemma at a wedding. Mary knew who Jesus was. God the Father chose to impregnate her because she and her fiancé were from the line of David, and she willingly surrendered herself to be the mother of the long-awaited Me...